Actually today's, uh, the meteorological beginning of spring.

What?

Yeah.

Today?

Apparently.

I always thought it was like the 20th of March, okay.

No.

Like, you know, the weathermen, the weathermen.

The weathermen say the 1st of March is spring.

Yeah.

That's bollocks.

I'm assuming most people are here because they are either, people who

run retreats are thinking of running a retreat, or have just like given

up running retreats 'cause it was so difficult to make any money.

What we would like to focus on today is just putting a price on a retreats,

and how that connects to the work that we do on the Happy Pricing

course and all the conversations that Ben and I have on this podcast.

But I think it's always much more helpful and useful if we can

ground, the theory in some real case studies or some real life

experiences of people doing it.

And also to hear from other people how they tackle this challenge.

Because it's, from my experience of this, there's

no one way to do these things.

And it's also, it's not a simple thing I would do.

Step one, step two, step three, step four is success.

There's, there's a, it's an art, uh, not just a process.

To help us today tell the story of pricing retreat, we have Matt

Matheson, uh, speaking coach.

Thanks for having me.

It's nice to be here.

Um, talking about stuff that's close to my heart.

So, um, yeah, my name's Matthew Matheson and, um, you know, I brand

myself as the speaking coach, and I work in the space of expression.

That shows up as helping people find their voice when it matters most.

Um, and I do this through helping people with public speaking

communication, leadership development, and confidence work.

Um, so helping them kind of tap into an authentic response when they need it.

Um, and the kind of challenges that my clients tend to have is

that for significant areas of their life, they're in that space, but

then, there might be certain areas, perhaps professionally, where they're

unable to step into that space.

And their congruence, if they like, is not present how they want to be, uh,

is not what they're actually doing.

So I help 'em try to close that gap when it comes to communication,

so I've been doing this work in some shape or form probably about

10 or 12 years now, I would say.

So where I am now, which is having numerous products and programs in

this space, from my six point speaker program through to the confident

meetings, confident people piece, that kind of redesigns cultures

and participation in meetings.

And one of the ways that I'm planning on doing that this

year is through retreats.

Um, so I've done many long workshops being part of events that last a

couple of days where I facilitated and hosted do long coaching programs.

I've always wanted to run a retreat and do it in this space because

I've felt the power of that kind of environment myself, seen it in

others, and it also speaks very closely to where I feel comfortable

and operate at my best in that kind of slightly more holistic space as well.

And so you've already gone on your own journey around, pricing this retreat.

but what you'd welcome as we discussed, offline, is this

opportunity to talk about the price, how to show value for money.

And you talked about pricing for success and making it

affordable for other people.

And it's probably very close to what most people who are on this

call, who are running their retreats or want to run retreats, probably

in that similar kind of space.

Like, you know, how do I show value for money?

And also how do you make a decent profit from it so that you can actually do it.

you know, have the energy to do it again?

And then there's other aspect of making it, accessible, not to

restrict it to, as I understand it may be a privileged few, but at the

same time you don't wanna devalue the price that you put on there.

So, the journey I've been on to prices, so the retreat

has taken place in November.

And it's three days.

I think I started with being aware at a high level, this is what I need

to do to complete this work, um, for people who attend to get the

transformation they want, and for me to feel like I'm doing what I really want.

So kind of bringing those two together.

And then of course, you know, it came through the 2020, Vision program,

not to help me figure out what it is I wanted to do, but you know,

the journey, I'm kind of, and it's like, okay, I know what I want to do.

I just need to kind of work out steps to get there.

And the steps really that I've taken have been a mixture of design, research

and conversations, um, that have kind of come together to produce the

figures that I'm currently landing at, and I'm just at the apex of kind of

cementing that, if that makes sense.

The kind of activities that I've taken is having a look at what it is I'm

offering, which is transformation, authenticity, congruence work, that

kind of stuff, helping people express themselves confidently, um, in the areas

that matters most out in the world.

And to kind of spend a weekend really stepping into, into that.

Then I started thinking, okay, well what's the structure and

how do I wanna approach this?

And I thought, well, it's not just me.

It's gonna need other people and it's gonna need to be holistic.

So that affects pricing.

So there's me doing the coaching circles.

We have, uh, someone doing some body work, massage and like yoga classes.

Um, and then we have food.

So there's all these kind of pieces that started to come

together when I was starting to map this out in a really exciting

spreadsheet, as well as other places.

And then as that became a bit clear, there was one thing perhaps coloring

my pricing thoughts initially, which was the retreats that I'd been on

and how much I'd paid for those.

And.

I've been on a number of yoga retreats and one or two other kind of retreats,

and those had a kind of specific kind of pricing scenario that kind of

sat between the three and 600 pound point, I'd say, for the weekend and

had varying levels of accommodation or food depending on what it was.

I spent a bit of time also having a look on the web, doing a good, you know,

a good whack of desk-based research.

So, you know, there's, um, queenofretreats.com and

various other websites.

It's kind of start to consolidate these things and give you nice

filters based on what you're doing.

So I was like, okay, let's have a look at transformation retreats, look at

yoga retreats, da, da, da, da, da.

Then I started to see the scale at which were starting to price things at.

And It was both kind of heartening and disheartening at the same

time, because I think what I saw was, um, it was really interesting

to see how people were pricing.

A lot of them seemed quite cheap, but then actually when I started

to scratch below the surface and look at what they're actually

offering, two things became clear.

They maybe weren't as fully all encompassing as what I'm trying to

do, you know, with the different people involved in approaches and

coaching and dah, dah, dah, dah.

And secondly, that what they were actually doing maybe wasn't actually

tagged correctly on the website.

You know, I'm a huge believer in, you know, the power of yoga,

for example, or mindfulness.

But how some of these were listed and tagged, it was like, okay, is

that really in the space of personal transformation or is it in wellbeing?

And it became a little bit hard to distinguish how people are seeing

these retreats or searching for them, which is a whole other conversation

there is around how they're presented.

So with this information, I started thinking around, there's kind of two

concurrent pieces of work happening.

Number one was, I was trying to pull this together, and that includes like,

what's the venue, what's the cost, who are the team, da, dah, dah, dah.

And then number two, alongside that was like, oh, I really need to get this

live and I need to generate interest.

And there's a kind of friction between those two perhaps, which,

um, was interesting to navigate.

And it suddenly dawned on me like, right, very quickly I need

to start figuring out the costs to really be able to price this.

So I got my expression of interest form out there and announced it was

happening, and then very quickly moved into getting the detail

sorted that needed to follow up.

To do that, I started looking at trying to find a venue, looking

at how much the venues cost.

They didn't provide food, so you'd have to pay for a chef, da, da, da,

all these little, and it was starting to go, you know, up quite high.

So then I fell into that and kind of, I started to feel a little bit of

financial risk, coming into this for me.

And I didn't know the venue personally, the venue I wanted,

Florence House, wasn't available.

It just suddenly occurred to me.

It's like, I don't have to do this in May.

so I spoke to Florence House, they had the perfect weekend

available in November, and they were like, look, we'll help you out

with the deposit if you need it.

And they've just been beautiful and warm.

And I was just like, right, let's just change it.

And that suddenly opened up an avenue of space and time for me to really focus

on this without the pressure of time.

And also potentially open up a various set of avenues for how

to price it creatively, given that there's a period of months.

So payment systems, deposits, early birds, all those kind of things suddenly

become a lot easier to, work with when you have that period of time.

And this particular venue, you know, they priced very clearly,

had a good cancellation policy.

They also, provide food in-house.

It's a venue I've been to myself, beautiful venue, Florence House

in Seaford on the on the cliffs.

And it just felt right and I felt that shift in my body, the kind of energy

systems without selling to woo, we kind of dropped into alignment and it was

like, okay, this feels a lot better now.

And then that gave me the space to then just continue and kind of like,

okay, spend a little bit more time thinking about, okay, who's gonna be

the massage therapist and does the yoga, who's gonna come in for the meditation

practices and integration stuff?

What other services can I offer?

So, where I've kind of landed on, on this is, you know, it's a

three day retreat, full board body work, massage, mindfulness, all

that kind of stuff, and all the coaching circles that take place.

And the kind of payment structures that I've landed on is, you

know, single occupancy or share occupancy, um, you know, standard

rate for single at the moment.

And like I say this is quite live and I'm happy to share it here,

is, you know, 1200 for the three days, including everything, um,

including the treatments, uh, or an early bird of a thousand, or if it's

shared, 950 or 750 respectively.

And then I know from my experience that being held after some of

these types of events can be very important for some people.

So then I've looked at having a kind of second option, which includes

six integration coaching sessions.

So we come out of the retreat and then there's kind of six weeks worth of

coaching sessions for, um, integrating assimilating climatizing, you know,

supporting the work on an ongoing basis, this, that needed for people.

I've approached that quite simply, really.

I've just kind of taken my standard six session rate of 1200 and just added

that one to the package as an option.

And I suppose the other thing is spent a fair bit of time looking at how to

actually capture money from people.

Because I thought if people want payment plans, actually, like

sending an invoice might not be the most elegant thing for them.

So I've spent a fair bit of time working with, um, a colleague of mine, just

having a look at some of these kind of tools that just allow to make it easy

for people to kind of step into that space and capture payments and stuff.

So I've just kind of landed on product based options within Stripe and I

just create a series of products, one would be a deposit, one would

be early bird, single, early bird shared, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, it's given a very comprehensive picture of your approach and not

only how to get to the price, but also how you are collecting

money, which is just as important as having a price, if not more.

- Yeah.

It's all well and good telling people how much it costs, but they

don't give you the money then.

It's actually even your point.

I, I like the way you structured it at the beginning.

You talked about design, research and conversations, and I think that's

a really helpful way for us to, I think, frame some of this discussion.

The way I understood design is like how does it work?

But also part of that was through understanding how it works, where

it was, what, all of these things are, the nuts and bolts access

of the event, that's kind of helps you crystallize the costs.

You know, all of that design work starts to tell you how much will I need to

spend in order to make this happen?

Then the research bit.

Felt like more about what's go, what's out there, you know?

What are what, what's the market like?

What are similar events, like what are people paying

for, for retreats in general?

And this is, I think I'm gonna say retreats in general.

'cause you talked about yoga retreats, you talked about

transformational retreats.

You didn't necessarily talk about other retreats that were based

around finding your authentic self.

So there, there's very much kind of a general market look.

And then the last thing was conversations, which I

didn't hear you talk about.

It's a good pause.

So the conversations focused on, at the earlier part of my journey,

they took the form of finding people who are already in this space.

and coming to them with my, you know, with humble hands as it were and saying,

Hey, I'd just really love to learn from you, 'cause we just have a conversation.

It's a space that I'm moving into.

Um, and loads of people gave their time and just said, yeah, hop on a

call, you know, which was really nice.

And it was very simple.

Put it out to my community, put it out on LinkedIn, emailed a couple

of people and the universe kind of sent a number of people my way.

That kind of helped me talk about a few things.

Pricing, design pitfalls, that kind of stuff.

and then the other conversations were just sharing my work out loud to use

a phrase from the Happy Startup School with people, you know, the buddy

group that I've been working with.

You know, I was like, right, this is where I'm going.

What do you think?

Giving the description, all that kind of stuff.

So it's, it's that sharing what you're doing rather than being

alone, um, with different spheres of people from those who are quite

close to what you're doing, to those who are maybe not so close as well.

The first question I had was also around the conversations point, and I'll look

through some of your kind of material.

who specifically is this retreat for?

Yeah, it's a really good question.

So this is aimed at people who are struggling to be authentic

and not showing up the way they want to, particularly verbally

in situations that matter.

So maybe people are noticing recurring patterns where they're not really being

themself or they're seeing many barriers to saying what they really want to

say or do what they really want to do.

So if we're talking about the type of person this is aimed at, this is more

psychographics rather than demographics.

So when I look at the sort of information and I sort of looked to

the website, obviously we should share all the information from websites

so people can do the same thing.

Uh, but when I was looking like, so there's some reference to, um,

say people might be in kind, there might be a midlife trigger to that.

And I'm just kind of curious, are there some other kind of specific

triggers where somebody might notice?

Because the thing, I guess when I hear something like authentic

voice, obviously that I, you know, is that, what does that mean?

Who's that for?

In what context?

Mm.

How does that actually turn up for me in practice?

And I guess I'm kind of curious about what those actual triggers are.

I mean, you've kind of alluded to some there, but I'm kind of

curious around the sort of detail around that just for context.

Because I guess the reason I'm curious around the detail on that is when we

get to conversations around how to communicate the value, the extent to

which you are sort of very pointedly talking to specific problems and people

making those specific problems go away, that is essentially the communicating

the value bit around price.

So kind of going back over this who and the triggers kind of

is sort of useful and will be important I would've thought.

So the kind of triggers that show up here is often more

emotional rather than logical.

Um, it's often a feeling like I've had enough of not really

being me or not feeling heard or, finding that I just can't quite

step into myself at work, perhaps.

And it's like, okay, I'm in this role here, but I don't feel confident enough,

or I'm not really saying what I need to say, and that's holding me back.

And then that sometimes whether it's personal or professional,

can then lead to the practical rather than the emotional.

It's like, okay, I haven't gone for this.

So there may be an event that comes as a result of this kind of thing.

So this feeling leads to a certain behavior which leads to an event.

And then that event might be the point where you go, right, I've had enough.

Mm.

For example, someone may, have been repeatedly encouraged to

apply for a different job role.

You know, one where they can level up, but they're gonna, they know that in

their heart they really want to go for this, but they say no because they.

Have this fear arising that they can't be themselves or they can't handle it,

or they can't speak up in that moment, in that interview or that presentation.

Mm.

And it's like, bang, I've missed this great opportunity.

Mm.

know, or someone didn't stand up and say something when they needed to, which

then led to something negative happen and it's like, right, I've had enough.

I need to deal with this now.

Or sometimes maturity and wisdom just kind of kicks in.

It's like, okay.

You know, if, you know James Hollis's The Middle Passage talks about this

idea of where we kind of get to kind of somewhere between 35 and 55.

You know, we have this big change in our life where we start to kind

of like realize we want To let go of the kind of subconscious

patterns that are governing what we do and often don't help us battle.

And suddenly go, actually, wait a minute, there's a

different way to do it.

You know, there's a way which is more in line with who I want to be, how I wanna

show up, um, and really to be a bit bolder, um, and more, more conscious.

Because I think when I, uh, kind of read the things, and this is again

just to sort of reflect, because obviously I know you also as a

speaker coach, 'cause we did some work together around, uh, Summercamp.

Uh, but I also, when I was reading the information on the kind of retreat,

um, so obviously there, there's kind of specific things like, you know, talking

about whether something's authentic and the kind of voice around that and how

clear that is as a signal to somebody.

But like where you provide kind of specific examples there.

And like, I was kind of reflecting on my own journey.

And after I had, um, kind of sold and left my last company,

I started writing a blog.

And the reason I started writing a blog, which I came to realize was

because I was trying to refin my voice, which I was like, my voice had

been lost because it had been kind of wrapped up in sort of identity and

relationships with my old business partner and things around the company.

So I didn't really feel like I was being myself.

And like, so for me, a lot of what you talk about and the kind of

retreat was that could, you know, that would talk to that sort of problem.

And the reason again, that, that's interesting, the more that of course

that we zone in on those kind of clear case points for want of a different

word, the clearer we are about those, the clearer we are about that kind

of moment, the more that we are signaling to a me this is for you.

And also it, that then opens the gateway to kind of starting to

understand what the value is.

As does your example you shared there around the, the applying for a job

thing, .Because people can get to a very kind of clear what is the cost of me

sort of singularly not making progress on this job thing where I'm being

asked to do this over and over again.

And, you know, there, there may be an actual number there or there

may be a kind of, you know, a, a sort of qualitative number there.

Either way it's starting to kind of point to a specific problem

that people want to solve.

And the more of course we are solving that, the more that it's,

you know, it's easier for there to be an exchange of money for doing it.

And so I guess the only sort of other thing I'd sort of say when we talk

around sort of conversations, of course the more we zone in on the who, then we

really need to start the conversation with those whos, as an indicative

thing to talk about the value, to talk about what it might be so that, uh,

we're starting to test the assumptions around price, uh, or, or value rather.

We're starting to attest the assumptions around that with those specific whos.

I have a question.

You have arrived at the number of 1200.

What helped you settle on that number?

I took a look at the price per person, full board per

24 hour period for the venue.

Mm-Hmm.

I looked at the.

Amount I will need to pay the team that will be supporting me.

I looked at how many people that I need to bring on board in order to

break even, and I then looked at how much I may potentially be able to

make if I brought in the numbers that I want, which would be, you know,

ideally between 15 and 25 people.

Um, and of course had some conversations with people from the working groups

that I was in around some of my prices, and got some feedback along

the lines of, um, don't undersell yourself, or, this feels about right.

Or this through a series of conversations that I had to kind

of shape it, and then I kind of landed where I've landed.

So just to be clear, you've totted up all the costs.

I assume you've got a little idea of how much you'd like to make on top.

Yeah.

So if I was gonna do a simple complication and it's, there's

nothing for you to do with how much you're gonna earn, but say

10 grand for costs, for instance, I wanna make five grand on top.

To break even.

I need 15 people paying a grand each.

Yeah.

as a simple way of thinking about it.

Yeah.

So if I get more than that, fantastic.

But there's a lower limit that you set that is dictated by how much your time

is worth to how much you like to spend.

Or if you're gonna spend three days with a bunch of people,

how much is that worth to you?

Is one kind of element of this.

The other aspect of this that I was hearing is that you talked about

psychographics rather than demographics, which is, as I understand it, it's about

this kind of emotional state that you are in and the emotional change that you

wanna create for yourself, but I dunno which words are best to use these days.

One example is from a personal perspective, I just

wanna be more confident.

I wanna be able to make better decisions in my life.

I wanna be much more clear about the direction I want to go in.

And then there's another person who's like, actually

I want to go for the CEO job.

And I'm not gonna get the CEO job unless get over this timidity or

this lack of confidence in myself.

For one person, that CEO job, maybe that's a bump in

50 grand a year in salary.

Again, just trying to illustrate a point.

For the other person who just wants to be confident for the

rest of their lives, they have no numeric benchmark to work with.

They're just like, to my god, imagine living a life that's really

amazingly clear and authentic.

And the amount of money I'm gonna spend on that will then

depend on how much I earn, I would assume, and what's capable.

So this whole thing about who and the conversations you have for me,

there's about understanding what numbers are in their head when

they're thinking about investing in something this transformational.

So I'm wondering how that.

Lands in your head or how you thought about it when you're thinking.

Because you, there's another po The related point of this is

you are, you're talking about accessibility and making this open.

and this is one of the things myself and Laurence have in with

our retreats, we want diversity.

Know that's important to have lots of different types

of people, lots of voices.

But diversity in that sense also, probably does create

diversity, inability to pay.

And then that creates a little bit more ambiguity on the price.

If you then start getting creative around that, around, oh, this person

pays this, that person pays that, and well, how do I hook onto the value?

Yeah, I mean, I also say that it's probably quite difficult to

sell something that both a hedge fund and a social entrepreneur

want to go to, ' cause they would feel like very, very different

things for kind of obvious reason.

And I get the kind of thing around the sort of, you know, wanting it to be

for as diverse audience as possible.

And I think there are kind of, you know, tactical things of course you

can do around that, which like, sort of meditation, retreats, whatever

that I've been on or sort of I'll, you know, often there is like a rate,

which is a sponsor rate or some sort of benefactor rate where you are

kind of paying more to subsidize somebody who can only pay less.

So there are definitely sort of tactical things that you can sort of

do around, uh, the pricing and kind of what's offered that helps you

talk to a range of different people.

And I, I get that the hedge fund thing versus the social entrepreneur

is just a kind of an extreme, extreme illustration, but it does also come

back to the thing, you know, and even the example you were giving Carlos,

if I was just somebody who wanted just to kind of feel more confident,

that wish, that need, that desire is a response to something you are also

trying to make something go away.

You are trying to stop something.

You are trying to affect a change.

And whilst there might not be an absolute figure in that, it might not

be if I am more confident, I'm gonna get the next level job and that next

level job is worth X, which of course is all sort of super practical, there

is still a kind of change, there is still a solution that somebody is trying

to buy or, there is sort of change that somebody is, is trying to make.

And so that change is worth something to them.

And it might be that we need to, we need to sort of experiment and you

know, it for sure involves guesswork that you are going to be in some form

picking some numbers out, which might be numbers based on what you've seen

of other people, uh, although clearly as you all kind of know, depending

on where you look and how you look, that could look very different.

Because, you know, happy Startup things cost one thing.

I did a three day Do Lectures thing that was two and a half thousand pounds.

You know, there's a three day meditation retreat you can

go on, which is 300 pounds.

And all of you know, in, in different ways, of course, all of them are

selling the same thing, right?

They're selling something around transformation.

They're selling something around change.

They're selling something about feeling like this at the

beginning and feeling like that.

At the end.

So in a way that's the thing we're trying to buy, which of course just

sort of points to the difficulty of basing our price on what other people

are kind of offering, 'cause for sure it's easy to find the biggest

fucking spectrum you could imagine.

Uh, and then what that kind of leads us to do is kinda end

up somewhere in the middle.

The other thing that was coming to mind as you were talking there, the

in thinking, if I add up my costs and I think about who I can get, which

of course are or numbers of people that I might be able to get, and then

what I might earn, we're also kind of anchoring ourselves down, because

we are coming at it from a low point, which might mean we are not seeing it

to come, we are missing the opportunity to come at it the other way round.

Uh, but I appreciate this is not providing pointers.

This is providing just more questions than answers about the journey

that we go on to get to this price.

But I think, like for me, you know, particularly when we are doing something

for the first time, like when you talk about, say, 15 people coming,

do you have a pretty good feel for who those 15 people would likely be?

I'm not quite down at faces and names, um, but I've got areas that

I think I want to kind of move into and market to, if you like.

So previous clients is the first obvious place, um, for people who

want to kind of, you know, I want to drop a level deeper with the work.

They'll often want to drop a level deeper and I often find that in the

conversations more and more just 'cause this is a space I'm operating

from more and more, this is where they want to be more and more as well.

Um, so it feels like that's my very first place is people who have come

to me with anxiety around this thing.

And then have found it really useful, but of course want to take it further.

So they've already done one-to-one work with you, these people?

Or they've done the, the course, the group courses?

So either one-to-one, or as part of my cohorts or workshops.

So they've already kind of got an idea of how much they they've

spent with you in the past?

Yes.

I was gonna go back to the Do Lectures example that Ben gave.

Mm.

I have a kind of, quite a strong view on the types of people

who go to the Do Lectures.

Ex advertising types, ex creative types, people who probably made

quite a good bit of money in their industry, in their city.

And so they in, yeah, in their work and probably founders of

these kind of creative agencies.

So they are in the two to three grand spending power range.

There's still a level of diversity within that, and there are people

who, are not necessarily in that demographic, but are attracted to the

idea of being around those people.

So I'm wondering how that informs your way of looking at the kinds of

people that you would like to attract, and then how that also then starts

to inform the kinds of prices that you could offer because of that.

I think the people that I'm looking to attract, I'm trying to push myself into

the kind of more demographicy space, which is where I can feel you pushing

me, uh, with, with this conversation.

Freelance or business areas rather than, um, employed in

a corporate, not excluding, but probably more so that way.

Probably between 30 and 50 years old.

Not exclusively, but that's probably the space that I think most people

in from my work that I've seen.

Maybe a slight 60 40 skew identifying female to male.

And mostly.

In a situation where they're working their way up, their professional ladder,

whatever that may look like to them, and have some sort of goal that they want to

achieve that kind of crosses over that personal and kind of professional space.

So the example in my head is, um, female professional who's recently

been made CEO of their agency.

And they're wanting to lead more authentically with less

stress, more confidently.

And they're looking for, a way to do that that's more attuned

with a less masculine way.

Approaching this a more.

Holistic way of approaching this.

I'm spit balling based on what you've heard and some

of the people I've talked to.

But particularly, 'cause I think when I think of this person who just became

CEO or is quite high up in agency, they have this level of spending power that

1200 pounds doesn't sound ridiculous.

Yes, and if I pull from previous clients, it is people who need to

stand up more and so it's where we kind of move into kinda like

what they do versus how they feel.

They're been asked to do more of the what stuff.

Pitching, standing up at being the voice for their business

have been promoted, these spaces.

And the feel bit, that struggling is, is that there's a fear holding

them back that's stopping them from confidently moving into that space

and being equipped to tackle it.

And where I wanna take them is to kind of go back and look at where

that fear is coming from so that they can then root themselves in

that, and then develop strategies to then move forward, letting go of

that fear that was there previously.

First bit got the why, and then you drifted into the how, but I

would like to stay with the why

Cool.

In terms of, what I'm achieving for this, 'cause I think that,

I need to be more visible.

I need to be the voice of the business, I need to leave people,

I'm kind of scared of doing that, or the fears held me back.

I need a process to allow me to overcome these fears or least work

with is basically to fulfill this role of leader or voice or whatever it is.

So if that sounds quite aspirational, powerful, valuable, and very targeted

to a certain group of people, and I'm sure there's other people who might not

be in that specific situation, but would aspire to be around people like that.

And so, because I, when I was looking at your site, it's like,

the, it speaks a lot of in terms of the how and you know, and the

kind of what you'll get out of it.

But I was trying to, and I think Ben was looting.

It's like, who, who would be on there?

Mm-Hmm.

What's the type of person, what's the use case for one, but what's the

journey, kind of like the example of the kinds of people you want

to help and where they'd get to?

Or the journey they're on and how this is gonna help with that

journey, I think is more accurately.

Maybe way of, of also kind of, uh, sort of think about it.

If we think about like the Happy Pricing course, for example, the thing that

would say on the label, 'cause this is about what it says on the label.

Like, you know, you Matt know, there's a thing that says on the label,

like the what of what I'm doing, and then there's really how you

kind of resolve all of that, right?

And people want to change the thing that's on the label.

I want to be, you know, I need to be able to step up.

I need to be able to do these things.

So they can, for them, the kind of the, rational bit of their decision making

mind is looking for the practical thing.

It's looking for the what it's looking for, the specific problem to be solved.

That your way.

And you know, the way of solving that is by taking them back, is by

going deeper, is by understanding the kind of emotional thing, is

a little bit for you to know.

Do you know what I mean?

Mm-Hmm.

And they kind of know it as well a little bit, but they

will come, they are compelled to come because of the what bit.

And so like, just to illustrate the point, just same with like the, the

kind of pricing work they do, people will come because they feel that there

is something wrong with the price, or they feel the difficulty around getting

to a price, or they kind of unsure, you know, it feels like guesswork.

All of these things which feel kind of practical.

And then what happens, of course through the journey of kind of working

with us is that we realize that a lot of the thing which is kind of,

that is influencing and affecting how we think about it, is how we feel

about money, how comfortable we are talking about money, ideas we have

around that, stories we might bring.

So similar kind of thing.

there's a what thing out here that people I can buy solving that what?

Our view on solving it involves this, all this other sort of

stuff, in a way is sort of for us and for them to come to discover.

And the thing which compels somebody to do it, like the persona that,

um, Carlos just painted there of that person feels really compelling,

that persona, that idea, because it's aspirational, it's positive.

There's a specific problem that's being solved, and it's like they're

the people who kind of are buying in.

Then it's, then, it's then the opportunity is for you to help them

solve that problem via the lens that you, that, you know, works best.

But the what bit is really important for that.

The other thing that springs to mind there, let's take that

example of someone who's been newly made CEO into a leadership

position, there's an opportunity there, a, for the company to buy.

So that's another different level of pricing.

It then goes into the bucket of I'm not comparing myself to a yoga retreat.

I'm comparing myself to leadership programs, to these 10 grand offerings

out there that are gonna, you know, an MBA or, so these things

are much more about how do we, I become a more powerful, authentic,

authentically, or become a leader.

And a practical, it's also a business expense, so you know, who

is paying and how they're paying is of course, also important in

terms of how you get to your price.

Because if it's coming out my pocket, um, I might have one view of it if

it's coming out of a business expense.

So essentially it's just sort of reducing my sort of taxable profit.

Then of course, that's a completely different thing.

Uh, and this again also comes back to the who and the, and

the kind of, and the trigger.

The conversation around personas, and the word that comes to me is like case

studies, you know, examples of the challenges that they may be facing in

a bold, kind of like real way is really useful and something that I haven't,

definitely haven't, kind of like named on the retreat page in, in that way.

And I can see actually now through this conversation, that'd

be a really good thing to do

. I think it's a good pivot or different frame of reference

to kind of think, okay, let's look at the leadership space.

Because, and I'm, I'm kind of thinking out loud here as I'm, as I'm sharing

this, is there's, there's the, um, who was it who said this a little while ago?

Like a few people have been saying this is, is, you know, you kind

of sell them what they want, but then you give them what they need.

And it's like, okay, what do, what do these people want?

They want to feel more confident in front of c-suite execs or, um,

just in front of, you know, the people they need to market to or

their audience, da, da, da, da.

So what's the thing they actually need underneath that?

It's the deeper work, you know, that kind of like tightens the

congruence, all that kind of stuff.

And, um, I think where my mind is going with talking this through is it is

helping me qualify in people in a way that maybe, perhaps I hadn't thought

about, you know, from kind of, you know, the business world, if that makes sense.

And that there is space for tightening the kind of demographic

side rather than psychographic side, and that they're not exclusive.

Laurence, uh, made a comment here about, um, Alptitude, and he talks about

there's value bringing leaders together at similar points in their journey.

This for me is speaking to trying to be a safe choice.

And removing some of the, am, removing as much ambiguity as possible.

Mm-Hmm.

And that value isn't just necessarily in terms of the content,

but also feeling like you are.

You are allowed to be there.

You are among the right people.

And so that clarity about this in a sense is these kinds of people can help.

I think, and this is sort of talk to us sales thing more than anything really.

I think like when people buy something, they're buying the

idea of something as well, right?

So, and I've sort of struck when I was kind of reading, 'cause I get, well

I guess you can tell me it's kind of right or wrong, whether, so you've kind

of alluded to it a little bit at the beginning whether this, this journey

that you're setting is also partly the journey that you've been on is it?

So this kind of thing about sort of doing work, kind of finding voice,

the importance of finding voice and the kind of role that that's kind of

had in helping you sort of transition and grow and evolve and how, you

know, you were in this position and now you are in this position.

And so, I mean, is that right that kind of part of what it is

that you are teaching now reflects a journey that you've been on?

Yeah, there's definitely a clear expression of that.

Um, but then kind of moderated, you know, with, with, with

hindsight and time and, and, and

Of course,

But

that's the beauty of storytelling.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think the way I felt used to first kind of signpost this, if you like,

the language I used to use was trying to help people shortcut the process,

you know, that I've been on, I've kind of done the hard work as it works.

So, so without that sounding too, you know, too, too silly.

You know, I've been on a journey myself.

I now want to help others on that journey.

Right.

and I think that story, that journey is a, you know, that does kind

of paint a picture for somebody.

Oh look, yeah, it is useful.

Matt has done the work.

Matt has been on the journey.

Matt has explored all of those things.

Matt was here and now he's here.

And so the idea of that is a big part of what people are also buying, you

know, that is the emotive stuff, that is some of the emotive kind triggers,

which, you know, does talk to the, the psychographic aspects as much

as it does the kind of demographics.

I don't, you know, we don't need to kind of, sort of worry

too much about all of that.

I think, you know, this idea, people buy the story.

They buy the story of change.

Um, and that story of change might be enhanced and supported

by the idea that there's a certain caliber of people there.

That story might be enhanced and supported by seeing you having

been on the same sort of journey.

I think these things, of course, are all emotive.

That is how we decide to do these things, is because something

in here triggers, it flags.

It's like, this is what I want, then we look to justify it.

And whilst we haven't really sort of got into the sort of detail of it,

but you know what, we came into this talking about how do we, how do we

articulate the value of something?

And the other way we just might describe that is what we are really saying is

somebody's made the decision to do it.

Somebody's made the emotional decision, yes, I need this, I

want this, I step into this.

Then they're looking to justify it afterwards.

Mm-Hmm.

And the justifying it is also, we might call that kind of explaining the value.

Then there's lots of other things that, you know, we can, you can

start to do, which help we do that.

But really the kind of first and most importantly is am

I kind of lighting the fire?

Am I sparking the interest?

Am I kind of flagging to them this is the thing that, that I want to do?

And, you know, once that is made, then it's about reassuring.

And that's actually a much easier thing than getting that first

kind of emotional connection.

Because I might also say with Carlos and Laurence, I think, you

know, large, we can talk about them as if they were not there, so you

could ignore them for a minute.

It's like, I think like if you take things like Summercamp or you take

things like Alptitude, part of what people are buying, I think is the idea

of them, the idea of Happy Startup.

And of course all of the, the kind of work that they've done in sort of

embodying that message and communicating that message, part of what people

are, they're buying the idea of that.

And then we look to kind of justify afterwards about, you know, it's good

value because dot, dot, do dot, but just at its heart is a really simple revenue.

I'm just buying the idea of Laurence and Carlos.

I'm buying the idea of Happy Startup School.

And that, you know, feels good and motivating for people.

Then we justify it afterwards.

First of all, uh, I definitely buy into the idea of buying a

piece of Laurence and Carlos, I think, uh, worth expecting gold,

however you, uh, frame that vision.

Yeah, but I really like the point that you make around, um, you

know, half of it is the story.

That I think what we're scratching at here is the idea is like that the

personality, the essence of where this is coming from is important.

And for something like this kind of work and the work that you kind of do, you

are buying the philosophy, the essence, the, the expression that comes from

the people behind it as well, 'cause this kind of work is an expression

of the people behind it, you know?

Whereas buying like, you know, a plastic toy on a shelf

isn't really an expression of, you know, somewhat behind.

It is, it was a functional transactional thing.

But anything that moves into this space is definitely, um, my

experience tells me that I want to know enough about the person behind

it to quantify the value as well.

We have a couple of questions actually before we totally close

off and I invite you, Matt, to just share your conclusions or thoughts.

Um, just a quick question from Sharon.

She was saying, and this is towards the beginning, uh, she was asking how

does the coaching circle as opposed to one-to-one fit in with the pricing?

Okay, lemme come at this kind of maybe, uh, the way it shows up in my head.

So the price point for the weekend is similar to what people will pay

for one-to-one across six weeks.

Um, that's because I think they can achieve at least the

same level of change throughout the course of the weekend.

Um, and there are two different ways of working.

Um, and what I believe is that a one-to-one can achieve a certain

level of change, online or in person, which is priced at what I

priced 1200 for the six successions.

And then cohorts are priced a lot lower, just so you understand, so

people who come to my online cohorts, they're a three 50, um, because you're

with a group of people, but you don't get the same impact as an in the room

coaching circle where the energy is coming into play a lot stronger across

the group and kind of contribute to that feeling of change as well.

It sort of feels like an example of we'd get into this kind of

debate with somebody when they're in the zone of trying to justify

something a little bit, right?

Mm-Hmm.

And, and in a way either they're in the stage of trying to, I'm not suggesting

this is situation with Sharon, but generally when people, you may go to

sort of discussion around specifics when people are just scrambling around trying

to find their reason for doing it.

And of course, then we are not gonna sort of sell because we're

being distracted on the specifics.

Or it becomes something which is happening in the justification phase.

And then whether one-to-one resonates with somebody more than a circle, of

course it talks to people's different preferences and practice and whatnot.

But I appreciate that may not answer the question either.

Maybe a bit tangential, but the thing that springs to mind for

around this coaching circle, as opposed to one-to-one, some

people wanna work one-to-one, some people wanna work in groups.

And so the, this for me talks to choice.

Mm.

I want this transformation, but I need it in a certain way, whether it's

to do with being an extrovert or an introvert, or whether to do with my own

personal availability at a certain time.

And so, um, I think she was alluding to how you're packaging things

together, but I thought it'd be worth talking about as well for people

who are offering different ways for the transformation that you create.

Um, and it isn't necessarily a matter of price, it's just a matter of,

you know, their comfort of how they most comfortable experiencing it.

Actually, so a single sentence answer on that, if just in case we are

talking about the packaging thing.

Yeah.

Um, the figure for the weekend is almost the same as the six weeks one-to-one.

Yeah.

And impact should be the same or doubled if they go for both.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

There's a depth that you can get to it sounds like if you have an ongoing

practice and more focused attention.

Okay.

Um, Beccie has a quick question I thought we'd tackle before we leave.

What do you all think about having different retreats

for different demographics?

Which I interpret as different prices for different people,

but just in different groups.

So you've got corporate people, 12, you know, three grand,

and then you have others.

It's only 300 quid, but it's the same retreat.

So my response to that is, um, do it.

And I think what I mean by that is, you know, I've definitely targeted workshops

and coaching to kind of certain types of teams and certain types of groups.

And I think, yeah, it's definitely a good way of doing it.

And it speaks to what we've been speaking a little bit now is just

basically going down to the who a little bit more, you know, pushing

us into this demographic territory.

It was Okay.

Retreat for leaders, as you guys quite clearly shout out on your retreats.

This is for leaders, you know, and some other people from the group I

was working with, like retreats for UX designers, um, you know, retreats

for dog handlers was, was another one.

You know, and it's like, yeah, I think it's, it's a really good way to really

clearly know the market that you're, you're targeting, um, and then you

can tailor the design for their needs.

What spring to mind is, uh, say you did a retreat for leaders

and it's three grand, and you would love to offer a retreat

for leaders in social enterprise.

Um, but it's still three grand.

It would be three grand, but you are offering this out.

Uh, you are gonna invest in these people.

Uh, this is one of the things that came across.

I want to invest in this area, so I will make this, I will invest two

grand of my money essentially to allow people to do it for a grand.

And so it's always the same price.

It's just how much of your time and money you are giving to

these people, less as a discount.

Because it sounds like these leaders, no matter where you were, what

kind of organization you there, there's a need for authenticity.

It's just the capacity to pay is different.

Um, but the value is always the same.

And I think what I'm trying to talk to is how we stop

minimize ambiguity of numbers.

Like, oh, it costs only thousand pounds for those people, it's 3000.

Why?

What's the story there?

And I think it's having that story more than anything else.

And the final thing is just if you have time and energy to do it.

I can imagine if you had two retreats or say three retreats a year, uh,

people paying five grand a pop, and you had 10 in each of those retreats.

So 150 grand, you could probably do it for free for a bunch of people.

I say just to kind of Beccie's point there that, uh, people might come in

disguise, I think that, uh, the answer to that is the Seth Godin thing, the,

the people like us do things like this.

Like they wouldn't actually go in disguise.

Also for the thing around the kind of call, you know, to Laurence's point

earlier about who you're identifying with, you know for sure, okay, maybe

you might get the odd person who would do that, but more often people want

to be seen to be in a certain group.

Uh, and so that will be more of a motivating factor than

price in almost all instances.

Okay.

Matt, what are you leaving with?

Having had this now one hour just minutes

Confusion

of input?

What am I leaving with?

I'm leaving with further insight into the importance of demographics

and the types of positions that people may be in who want this work

rather than just how they're feeling.

A solid exploration of the difference between what they want and what

they need through that lens.

And some updates from my retreat page to, to kind of incorporate this,

When you were just talking now, I think one of the things

that's springing to mind is.

When we were talking at the beginning, research, a design

research of conversations.

It's like you have now this idea of these people.

It's now finding these people who are just newly promoted or do, and then

talking to them about what they're trying to do to solve that problem.

And what other coaching leadership programs are they buying in

their company and what does that, how much does that cost

and how effective they are?

So that starts for me then, given the timeframe you've got, now,

you've got a good few months to really talk to a load of people in

Brighten, uh, at the very least.

The other thing I wanted to leave people with, uh, how it came

up for me is there's, there's pricing and There's selling.

And the way I'm thinking about it is there's the price that we're

talking about that leans heavily, I feel on the demographics.

Because it's about capacity to pay, and so what business and

what work they do will say how much money they are able to spend.

Once you've got that number though, then it's like justifying that

number, making it people feel safe, that that is a good number to spend

because I'm working with Matt.

He's got all of these years experiences, we're gonna have this lovely place

that we're staying in, we're gonna do all of these modalities, and there's

a process that makes real clear sense that it's gonna get me to where I want

to get to, and it, and it's gonna, I'm buying the outcome I'm wanting to buy.

So those, those are the two, you know, if I was gonna make it kind of a very

simplistic, different distinction is like a lot of the stuff that we

talk about, even like the being in a group of other leaders, that's a

justification to certain level to go to this thing and, uh, to do it.

And the price nearly is standalone.

It's like, yeah, I can afford that because that's how

much I spend on other stuff.

So for those, for those people who get caught up, maybe in that spaghetti

of all those things being interlinked and like, oh, it's about, it's

about how many days we're there or what the accommodation is like, as

opposed to that price might be based on something completely different or

it's another framing that's required.

And until next time, have a lovely rest of the week.

Take care.

Thanks Ben.

Cheers, Matt.

Bye.